From July 3 to August 11 are the Dog Days, a period during which, traditionally, our four-footed friends are supposed to have a licence for queer behaviour. Antiquity thought that, just now, their temper was dangerous and their bite menacing. Those of them who happened, in the way of metempsychosis, to be the vehicle of a once human spirit, shed the dog at midnight and indulged in demoniac revels in remote places; conversely the werewolf was abroad by night, and phantom hounds harried the phantom deer, while heroic John Peels sounded spectral tantivies on ghostly horns.
In fact, the title of the days is owed to Sirius, and Dryden puts it, "the Dog-star barks from afar". Moreover, the effect of this constellation upon the world in modern days seems to be directed rather towards the human biped so that persons in the public eye, "publicists" and "publicity agents" are apt to pass through that phase known as "Mid-summer Madness". The dogs are comparatively unconcerned.
The Irish Times, July 4th, 1931.